About the FSPTCA

What is the Tobacco Control Act?

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA), also known as the Tobacco Control Act, became law on June 22, 2009. It gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health. For more information about the Tobacco Control Act, visit the FDA Center for Tobacco Products site:

Public Health Objectives of the Tobacco Control Act

To help make tobacco-related death and disease a part of America’s past, not its future, CTP is committed to educating the public—especially young people—about the harms of tobacco products, keeping tobacco products out of the hands of America’s youth, and dramatically reducing the appeal of these deadly products. Everything CTP does is designed to reduce the impact of tobacco on public health, including our top three goals to:

Prevent Americans—especially youth–from starting to use tobacco

Encourage current users to quit

Decrease the harms of tobacco product use

Timeframe to Enact Law

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) is an important piece of legislation with many requirements. FDA has prepared a scrolling timeline to help you identify some of the key milestones.

June 2009

President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law.

Published final guidance to assist persons submitting to FDA all documents developed after 6/22/09 that relate to health, toxicological, behavioral or psychological effects of tobacco products and their constituents, including smoke constituents, ingredients, components, and additives.

Published proposed regulation that would require color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking to accompany the 9 new warning statements in the Tobacco Control Act on cigarette packages and in cigarette advertisements.

Publish final regulation requiring color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking to accompany the 9 new warning statements in the Tobacco Control Act on cigarette packages and in cigarette advertisements.

Publish regulations to address the promotion and marketing of tobacco sold or distributed over the Internet, by mail order, or through other non-face-to-face exchanges between a retailer and a consumer.

Establish a list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products, including smoke constituents, by brand and subbrand. Publish a public notice requesting scientific and other information on the harmful constituents in tobacco products and smoke.

Submit to Congress an implementation report on: Progress and impediments to implementing the Act, Number of new products and modified risk product applications received and Number of employees engaged in implementing the Act.

Publish a regulation that requires testing and reporting of tobacco productconstituents, ingredients, and additives, including smoke constituents, by brand and subbrand that FDA determines should be tested.

Submit a report to Congress on research into consumer understanding of harmful ingredients and recommend whether annual publication of the harmful and potential harmful constituent list should be continued or modified.

Disclaimer
This timeline is not a complete summary of the law. It is very important to note that in order to understand the full context of each section described below, you must read the actual section of the Tobacco Control Act (PDF - 329 KB). To help you do that, for each section described, we provide the section number of the Act.

Please note: For an action that has already happened, we show the actual date it was completed. For an action that will happen in the future, we show the upcoming date. Some of the dates shown below are different from the dates contained in the Tobacco Control Act. This is because the dates in these sections were changed in accordance with section 6 of the Tobacco Control Act.

FDA Center for Tobacco Products

The Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) oversees the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Some of the CTP’s responsibilities under the law include setting performance standards, reviewing premarket applications for new and modified risk tobacco products, requiring new warning labels, and establishing and enforcing advertising and promotion restrictions.